Film Score Focus

Last year I devoted an entire program of FILM SCORE FOCUS to my music which I had composed in 2008. It served as a short of "year in review" and was the first time a whole show was dedicated to my film music. After the program I was deeply humbled and surprised at all the positive emails regarding the show. I received a many words of praise and thanks for allowing my music to be broadcast.

The show ended up being so popular I made the decision that every year during the second to last weekend, I would make it a tradition to play my music for your enjoyment.

Would you rather not wait that long?

For the past decade I've been fairly disorganized when it comes to managing and distributing my music via the internet. I press CD demos for prospective clients and have avoided making my music available on the internet for many years. Only recently have I put up MP3s of my film music on this blog for people to listen to. I've been searching for a more effective and controlled method for distributing my music online which is why I just recently joined ReverbNation.

ReverbNation is a site where I can collect, manage, distribute, and monitor all my film music. I can create widgets to post around the internet and disseminate tunepaks to target clients. Tunepaks are customized playlists that appears as a music player widget via a web browser. It looks like after ten years and an estimated 3000 demo CDs, I don't think I'll ever have to burn another one ever again.

I'd like to invite everybody to check out my page, listen to my music, and check back often for new uploads. If you feel so inclined, I encourage you to sign up as a fan so you can keep in touch with my latest activities. For now, all my music is streamed and unavailable for download but I will be looking into making several of my scores available for purchase via iTunes in the near future.





Here is a music player widget which has everything that I have uploaded to date. These are stereo 320kbps MP3s which sound fantastic streamed from the player. Also take note that there will forever be a widget posted on the right hand side of this blog (scan down to view and listen).

Right now I have selections from the following film scores available for listening...

ARTOIS THE GOAT (2009)
COWBOY SMOKE (2008)
THE CHILDREN'S WAR (2009)
RIDE AROUND THE WORLD (2006)
UNCONVENTIONAL: THE STORY OF THE BARNETT SHALE (2008)
MAKING THE MODERN (2003)

More score selections will be posted including a few more features and some of my short film work in the upcoming weeks.

Enjoy!





I've also posted music on my Facebook account.

ReverbNation also contains a wealth of information regarding my career including press quotes, bio, my blog posts, photos, and videos.

Feel free to spread the word and thanks for listening!

Greetings! I have to apologize. The blog has been grossly out of date for many months. I had pretty much left the planet from January until early March working on the score for ARTOIS THE GOAT (2009) which premiere at SXSW here in Austin last March. It's taken just about every scrap of time I could muster in order to just get the shows done each week. For that, the blog has suffered and I am sorry for that. I'm going back through and doing my very best to try to catch up.

I'll try to do a handful a week until things get caught up. I won't expound upon each show like I normally would but I'll at least get the playlists up and links to the CDs for your reference. Hopefully I won't get this behind again. Thank you for your understanding and appreciate for the program!

All my best,
Brian

Once again it's that time of the year again...Academy Awards season. This coming Sunday will be the live awards presentation and before you go and watch the ceremony you should know all five nominees for Best Original Score. There are some good nominees this year and I'll even tell you who the winner will be! I've correctly predicted the winner for Best Original Score for the past twelve years and I'm not about to end my streak this year.

I have a love/hate relationship with the Academy Awards. On one hand I think they're stupid, largely incorrect, rarely recognizing true talents in the cinematic field, largely political, and the shows are always long and can get kind of boring.

However, I watch each and every year. I actually get a little excited about it. I can't help it. I think everybody who works in the business longs for the day when they can recite their Oscar speech. I've got mine ready to go...

Here is the lineup for FSF-166 Academy Awards Show 2009



Five composers...five films....five scores...which will take home the prize?

Mark my words...the winner will be...

SLUMDOG MILLIONARE (2009) by A.R. Rahman!!! (...although I really wish it were WALL-E...)

Happy Valentine's Day! In order to celebrate everybody's favorite love-inclusive holiday I thought I'd treat happy couples to cinema's most romantic film music. This was actually a challenge to put together. There is a lot of romantic film music out there but I scoured the literature to pull up the MOST romantic I could possibly find. Many of these aren't just my choices either. Fans around the globe have heralded some of these films as containing some of the most loving, romantic, syrupy, film music the world has ever known.

Here is the lineup for FSF-165 Love Is On The Air





Happy Valentine's Day!!

For the month of February I'm going to present a series of programs which celebrates Black History Month. The first one up will feature scores from the films of one of Hollywood's biggest (and most bankable) actors...Will Smith.

I'm very much a fan of Will Smith and think he may be one of America's best. Sure, we all remember him as The Fresh Prince both as a recording artist with his partner DJ Jazzy Jeff and also as Will on THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR. But if you were to limit is career to only those two respectable highlights of entertainment lore, you'd be missing out on one of the more diverse acting talents currently working today.

Will Smith is more than a cocky, witty, tough-guy who races cars, shoots up aliens, or blows up bad-guys. Smith is very diverse with a huge range of skills that it is truly something to behold. Two of my favorite roles that he's done might be his two most surprising. The first one is his first real break in film, SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION (1994) where he plays the son of Sydney Poitier who befriends the parents of a fellow classmate who is not present. Is he who he says he is? My second favorite performance is when he played Chris Gardener in THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS (2006) which could be my favorite Will Smith to date. It's a powerful tale of one father's struggle to provide for his son which was, in fact, played by Will Smith's real life son Jaden.

I think when you hear the film music on the show this week, you'll hear as diverse a selection as Smith's acting performances.

Here is the lineup for FSF-164 The Fresh Prince of Hollywood

I've said it before and I'll say it again...I LOVE the 80's! There is something special about this decade in terms of it music and its film. The 1980s was an age where filmmakers embodied and embraced the feelings of the ultimate adventure. They weren't afraid to take you on wild and sometimes wacky rides no matter how absurd the premise might be perceived.

Along side these films were bold and daring film scores which did not hesitate to grab you by the neck and scream, "You WILL enjoy this!!!" Film scores in the 80s were not subtle nor were they restrained. They were loud, bold, exciting, and tugged on your heartstrings as if weighing a metric ton.

I often do shows focusing on scores from the 1980s and this week I want to focus on a particularly iconic series from the decade: Robert Zemeckis' BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985), and its two sequels.

Here is the lineup for FSF-163 Heading Back to the Future

Here is the lineup for FSF-162 Set Sail With The Tall Ships

One day in the 1994 I was in my college dorm channel surfing the night away when I stumbled upon a TV show. I stopped on it because something caught my ear. It was some incredibly cool music. I hadn't been used to finding great scoring examples on television in the early to mid-90s so this really caught me by surprise. I listened more and the more I listened, the more I fell in love with the music. The next thing I know I'm getting into the show itself. I wasn't sure what it was right away until the first commercial break happened.

...it was the X-FILES!



Ever since then I've been a HUGE fan of the show and of the wonderfully scoring by Mark Snow.

This week on Film Score Focus we're going to hear music from the hit television show as well as the two feature films the series spurred.

Here is the lineup for FSF-161 Scores in the Key of X

In 2008 Tadlow Music issued a brand new recording of the complete score EL CID (1961) by Miklós Rózsa. I've decided to devote the entire program this week listening to music from this classic masterpiece. You've never heard this music sound so incredibly good!

Here is the lineup for FSF-160 EL CID: The New Recording

Welcome 2009! Since we're all a bit preoccupied with the concept of time, I thought I would take advantage of this opportunity to showcase film scores from movies featuring time anomalies. We're not necessarily talking about time travel. I'll save that for another show. No, these films have strange riffs in the space/time continuum. It may be for dramatic effect or comedic effect but they all have a time anomaly within their plot.

Here is the lineup for FSF-159 Time is of the Essence